offended her was settled. A free fight only brought a smile to her
lips, and often the Sire de Baudricourt--one of the King's Captains
--would ask her if there were any one he could kill for her that day
--a little joke at the expense of the abbots. With the exception of the
potentates among the high clergy with whom Madame Imperia managed to
accommodate her little tempers, she ruled everyone with a high hand in
virtue of her pretty babble and enchanting ways, which enthralled the
most virtuous and the most unimpressionable. Thus she lived beloved
and respected, quite as much as the real ladies and princesses, and
was called Madame, concerning which the good Emperor Sigismund replied
to a lady who complained of it to him, "That they, the good ladies,
might keep to their own proper way and holy virtues, and Madame
Imperia to the sweet naughtiness of the goddess Venus"--Christian
words which shocked the good ladies, to their credit be it said.

Philippe, then thinking over it in his mind that which on the
preceding evening he had seen with his eyes, doubted if more did not
remain behind. Then was he sad, and without taking bite or sup,
strolled about the town waiting the appointed hour, although he was
well-favoured and gallant enough to find others less difficult to
overcome than was Madame Imperia.

The night came; the little Touranian, exalted with pride caparisoned
with desire, and spurred by his "alacks" and "alases" which nearly
choked him, glided like an eel into the domicile of the veritable
Queen of the Council--for before her bowed humbly all the authority,
science, and wisdom of Christianity. The major domo did not know him,
and was going to bundle him out again, when one of the chamber-women
called him from the top of the stairs--"Eh, M. Imbert, it is Madame's
young fellow," and poor Philippe, blushing like a wedding night, ran